Lesson Idea | Random Walk: Movement and Learning Combined!

If you try this activity with your students, we’d love to see what you do. Share your journey via the #Inspired2Learn hashtag on your preferred social platform.

Discipline: The basic structure of this activity can be applied in just about any discipline.

Age level: This can be adapted to all grade levels.

Time: 10-20 minutes depending on how long you want to give groups to come up with solutions and how many solutions you choose to engage.

This activity challenges students to think about concepts collaboratively in a physical way and completely without words. The challenge level can be raised or lowered depending on the prompts involved and students will surprise you with the range of ways they solve each puzzle you provide.

What to Do

Find a large open space where students can walk around freely (outdoors or a gym usually work well). This game has 4 rules:

1. Fill the space.
2. Stay in motion.
3. Be mindful of your body and others.
4. Play in silence.

Instruct the Class With These Directions

- Start walking around the space.
- Fill it up.
- As you watch students circulating, you should circulate too and call out what you notice like: There’s a gap over here. There’s a gap over here. Pick up the pace. Move quickly, this exercise is done in silence.

After students have gotten the hang of quickly moving through the space you begin to share these directions:

- When I say go… find three people and form a triangle. Go! (Pause to give every group a chance to make their shape.)
- Keep walking. When I say go… In groups of 2 make a square. Go!
- Keep walking. When I say go… In groups of 4 make a hamburger. Go!
- Keep walking. When I say go… In groups of 3 make the 3 branches of government. Go!
- Keep walking. When I say go… In groups of 5 make a car. Go!

Once students have figured out how this game works with these general prompts you can start making it more complicated with content-specific prompts. Examples include:

- ELA: In groups of 5 make a run-on sentence.
- ELA: In groups of 2 make a scene from the Catcher in the Rye.
- Science: In groups of 4 make a chemical reaction.
- Science: In groups of 5 make the major parts of an animal cell.
- Science: In groups of 3 make an atom.
- Math: In groups of 5 make ¼ x ⅕.
- Math: In groups of 2 75%.
- History: In groups of 3 make the branches of government.
- History: In groups of 4 make the defining characteristic of polytheistic religions.
- History: In groups of 3 make a Roman aqueduct.

Notes to Consider

Shapes can be chosen to push students to think in a particular way, ex. abstractly, about a topic (engineering, government, grammar), about things that are too small to see, etc. You don’t need to know how they will construct the shape/idea – that’s entirely up to their creativity!

When participants are frozen in sculptures, invite them to look around and take note of the other ways in which their peers have solved the challenge.

Standards Addressed by This Activity

- Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language
- Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing
- Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening
- Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading
- College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards
- Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Competencies